Yes and Amen: The Promise of Divine Partnership
Yes and Amen: The Promise of Divine Partnership.
In Christ is found the Yes! to all God’s promises, and therefore it is through Him that we answer Amen! to give praise to God. As His Yes! and our Amen! ascend to God, we bring Him glory.” (2 Corinthians 1:20).
YES: the answer in the affirmative.
AMEN: (Hebrew, related to the root word for truth); Yes! That’s right! We agree; This is absolutely truer; This is certain; This is trustworthy and assured; So be it; Let this be true; We heartily approve; We believe this with all our heart and soul.
“Because of His glory and goodness, God has given us magnificent promises that are beyond price, so that through the power of these tremendous promises you can experience partnership with divine nature.” (2 Peter 1:4).
PARTNERSHIP: (Greek word, koinonos): to participate in; to share with; to be a partner with; to partake of; to be a companion with; to have fellowship with.
God’s discipline is always good for us, He corrects us throughout our lives for our own good, so that we may share in His holiness.” (Hebrews 12:10).
SHARING GOD’S HOLINESS: Being set apart from sin and its consequences; Growing in those aspects of divine nature that God shares with believers; Being partners with Christ in His divinity because of His partnership with us in humanity; Cultivating divine characteristics because of intimate fellowship with God; God’s image being restored in us because of our union with Him; The result of participating in the life of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; Acquiring God’s spiritual DNA.
Partakers of God’s Divine Nature. This is a great mystery of the Faith… when we join with Jesus, we share in His holiness. We become partakers of His divine nature. Does that make us Gods? Are we changed into His essence? Does sharing with Jesus’ holiness make us worthy of worship? The quick answer is no. There will always be a profound distinction between man and God. We do not become God, we do not become divine. Humans cannot take on the nature of God, but we can acquire Godlikeness. This is indeed a mystery. We participate in God’s holiness. We become intimate partners with God in a unique fellowship. We share in His divine nature, without becoming God. We become God-like.
Restoring God’s Image. Through God’s grace we become more like Him. Because of our union with Him, we participate in His holiness. Before sin, God’s image in us directed our human destiny. But that image, that holiness, was marred and tainted. As we partake in the divine nature, God’s image in us is renewed. Our original destiny re-emerges. Communion with God results in the renewal of God’s image in us. As the Orthodox Church puts it, “We become by grace what God is by nature.” God’s divine energy transforms us into people who share in His holiness. The divine likeness is restored in a heavenly process. “We are being transformed into His very image as we move from one brighter level of glory to another. And this glorious transformation comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” (2 Corinthians 3:18). Through our intimate union with God, we partake in His divine nature, and we participate in the process of re-creating God’s image and likeness in us. We share in His holiness.
The Father’s Genes. When we are given birth into God’s family, we share His spiritual DNA. God has shared His nature with us. We have become children of the Lord, God’s true sons and daughters. We now share family characteristics, and holiness becomes a family tradition. God the Father has imparted His spiritual genetic framework to us, placing us in His gene pool. We now partake in His divine nature by being born again through the Spirit in union with our brother Jesus. “Jesus the Holy One makes us holy. And as sons and daughters, we now belong to the same Father, so Jesus is not ashamed or embarrassed to introduce us as His brothers and sisters!” (Hebrews 2:11).
God is faithful to do what He says, and He has invited you into partnership with His Son, a life of communion and participation in His life. God has called you to co-share the very life of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” (1 Corinthians 1:9).
There is a mystery to the depth of unity between the three-Personed God. Their love for each other is too deep to understand, yet close enough to experience through Christ. St. Bernard of Clairvaux once tried to describe the intimacy within the Trinity this way… “Surely if the Father kisses and the Son receives the kiss, it is appropriate to think of the Holy Spirit as the kiss.” We do know from John 14:10-11 and 17:21 that their communion is such that they are somehow inside each other. They are so closely knit that when you know the Son, you know the Father. And when you see the Son, you have seen the Father (John 14:7). Father and Son have enjoyed an intimate oneness, with the Spirit being their bond of love, since before the foundation of the world. And the triune God wants us to participate in the unity of their Family circle, the Son in us and the Father in the Son (John 17:23). Both the Son and the Father have always desired to share their home life with us (John 14:23). We are called to literally live within the Trinity, inside their relationship, being more intimate with God than with any other person (John 14:20). The Christian mystic Elizabeth of the Trinity once wrote that one of her spiritual disciplines was “burying myself, so to speak, in the depths of my soul to lose myself in the Trinity who dwells in it.”
“We saw it, we heard it, and now we’re telling you so you can experience it along with us, this experience of communion with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. For truly the fellowship, the shared companionship that we have is with the Father and the Son.” (1 John 1:3).
The Trinity’s profound love for each other has resulted in their sharing that love, their including humanity in their interaction. We have been called to participate in their life-giving intimacy, in their divine fellowship. We have been offered, through Jesus, the amazing privilege of sharing in their relationship. In Christ, we can now open our eyes to see the truth of our life inside the Trinity. Christ has succeeded in uniting the holy Trinity with fallen humanity, and the result is mankind’s inclusion in the life of the triune God. Inside the circle, we can now experience the very same love that the Father shows the Son (John 17:26). We can now confirm that the Father will love us just as much as He loves the Son (John 17:23). As Baxter Kruger says, “We don’t make Jesus a part of our world. He has made us a part of His.” We now can know our true identity, living in the circle of the Trinity, our true selves hidden within the joy and love of their intimacy.
“So you must remain faithful to what you have been taught from the beginning. If you do, you will live in close fellowship with the Son and the Father; you will live deeply in them both, sharing God’s life forever, as He has promised.” (1 John 2:24).
James Houston once wrote that “God is infinitely relational and intimately personal.” The wonderful mystery is that it is God’s nature to be relational and personal with the human race. When we are baptized in the Name of the Trinity, we are restored into God’s own bosom, received into the triune life of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Their relationship is now our relationship. Their reality is now our shared reality. We thus have a joyful place within their circle. When we are baptized in the Name of the Trinity, our eyes have been opened to our permanent destiny within their life. We thus celebrate our adoption into God’s trinitarian family.
Abba, Father. Is it okay to be so familiar with God that we call Him Abba, Father? Should we be comfortable addressing the almighty and everlasting God the equivalent of “Dad” or “Papa“? The ancient liturgical line leading into the Lord’s Prayer is, “We are bold to say… Our Father.” Bold indeed. And yet in 2 Peter 1:4 we are told that we are partakers of the divine nature, participants in the life of God, partners with the Godhead. We are told that God is including us in His eternal nature. In light of that, we have permission to be familiar with God, calling Him a family name. The Greek word for “partners” in that verse is “koinonos,” which means to be a companion with, to have deep fellowship with. Those are love words, words that invite communion. The truth is that we are able to join the intimate community of the Trinity through Jesus and through what He has done to renew the fellowship between God and people. Because of Jesus, we are bold to say, Abba, Father.